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Shifting Gears – UPDATE September 25, 2013

Bear track - hind footBear track - hind footWith the BBC finishing filming today, we’re shifting gears more toward writing while we continue to monitor the GPS-equipped bears including Aster.  At this moment, GPS signals show the remaining 6 GPS-equipped bears are okay.  Aster has begun accessing two of the community feeding stations to fatten up.  She hobbles to one or the other of them and then settles down in thick habitat to rest and lick her wound.  

Soon, we’ll put a trail cam near Juliet’s den to document when she emerges to rake bedding.  We'd also like to document visits of any wildlife like those that visited Lily and Faith’s old empty deep rock den this past winter.  Juliet should have cubs this January.

Fall colorsConstruction is wrapping up on the Hope Learning Center and the Northwoods Ecology Hall.  With urging from Judy Thon and the Bear Center staff, we are adding a small, permanent pavilion to replace the white tent shelter used for Camp Bear Paw and other exploratory activities for children.  

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has re-paved 10 miles of Highway 169.  In the process, they nicely added a turn lane for the safety of Bear Center visitors.    

Fall colorsWe managed to get pictures sent to a book publisher for a chapter on the values of oaks to wildlife.  Some 23 years ago, bears showed Lynn how valuable a stand of oaks was to them.  Bears traveled to that stand from over 20 miles away.  He checked further.  They were amazingly valuable to deer, grouse, and other wildlife.  He wrote about them and worked to get the stand protected.  The effort led to the oak stand and additional land being added to Tetegouche State Park.  Lynn is glad to see the values of those oaks being told in this book that should come out this winter.

Fall colorsThe big focus for the next couple weeks will be creating the presentations for the International Wolf Conference being held October 11-13 at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center in Duluth, MN.  Our presentations are scheduled for 8:30 and 8:50 AM Sunday morning, October 13.  One is on Bears vs. Wolves (who kills who under what circumstances), and the other is on the differences between wolves and bears in their vocalizations, facial expressions, and other body language.  The pressure is on to get those done in time.  We’re late starting those with all that has been happening.  It’s hard to keep up.  Now, with hunting pressure waning and filming completed, we need to make the best presentations we can, like we did for the IBA Conference.

At some point, we want Sue to narrate into a computer the great Den Cam presentation she made at the IBA Conference.  She spoke clearly and understandably and was very well received.  We want to put the presentation online.  It gives highlights of bear activities never before reported in the scientific literature.  It ends with Eli and Ellie racing around Lily doing the Beary-Go-Round, showing more activity in a den than anyone imagined.  Afterward, people were talking about many of the highlights.  Seeing bears urinate during the hibernation period, seeing how bears remove their foot pads, seeing yearlings nursing, seeing the wakefulness, seeing bears wasting energy playing at a time of no food intake, seeing REM sleep by both cubs and adults—all were topics of discussion after.  There were several papers on body temperature and heart rate data obtained from equipment surgically implanted in wild or captive bears.  The Den Cams provided a window into what bears do to generate the changes in temperature and heart rate.   

The BBC crew was a joy to work with.  We made a movie that can help bears, and they made it fun doing it.

Thank you for all you do.

—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center

All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.


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